An Eventful ‘Mela’

The Oshwal Association of the UK organised a large ‘mela’ on Sunday, 24th July with a funfair, trade stalls, vegan food and games galore, it was an eventful day out for all who attended.

An estimated 6000 people attended the event, with many coming in to see us at the colourful JAINpedia stall. Raising awareness of the commendable project was one of our objectives, and achieved substantially, with hundreds signing up for the future JAINpedia e-newsletter.

The Institute of Jainology and Jainpedia team talk to event attendees about the Jainpedia project at the Oshwal ‘Mela’

The Institute of Jainology team, as always stood out in the orange JAINpedia t-shirts, and talked to people about the project objectives, achieved milestones and showed people screenshots of the upcoming comprehensive and well – designed JAINpedia website. All were impressed at how much would be viewable on the site from digitized manuscripts zoomable to the minutest details, to ample information about Jainism through related articles, written by scholars and experts from around the world.

Further to this, young university students were encouraged to spend some time during their holidays, volunteering for JAINpedia events and website work; several signing up just to know more about their own culture.

A fruitful day for the project and much fun for the team. A full article of the event can be found on the Institute of Jainology Site soon.

One Response to “An Eventful ‘Mela’”

Practice of Jainism in India, seems to be more or less reduced to rituals and recitations without realising the meaning thereof. Such exhibitions / activities may help Jains & others to realise that aspect of Jainism which is more or less unknown